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We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the King James Bible. We thank you for dear friends and brother and dear God. We ask that you please bless the pastor who teaches you word, bless the message, and bless the fellowship. In Jesus' name, prayer. Amen. It's great to be here tonight. Thank you for the invitation. It's always good to be back in California. I'm from California, and of course, California gets such a bad rap. The haters are out there acting like there's something wrong with California, but only Arizona is superior. But I do love California, so it's good to be out here and see everybody again. So tonight I'm preaching on the subject of free will. Free will and the fact that God gives us choices and decisions to make. We really have a lot of freedom in our lives, and God wants us to have freedom. In fact, one of the key attributes of man and just the marvelousness of God's creation of man is that he created us with free will, the ability to make choices for ourselves. We can make all kinds of computers and robots and artificial intelligence, but they can't make a decision for themselves. They don't have any desires or free will. They're pretty much just going to do what they're programmed to do. Even if they can have an illusion of having free will, they don't. But God, even though he's all powerful, even though he knows everything, yet he could create us with the ability to choose for ourselves. Now, a lot of people can't wrap their mind around this, so then they just come up with this weird doctrine of Calvinism, which basically just says, well, God is actually controlling us, or he makes the decisions. And they'll say, well, there's free will, but God also decreed every single thing that happens. And it's like, well, which one is it, right? But look down at the Bible. You don't have to read very far in the Bible to get to this concept of free will. It's right at the very beginning because it's so intrinsic to who we are as human beings. It's such an important part of the creation of man, the fact that he has free will. Because look at Genesis chapter 2, verse 16. This is the first thing that God tells man. You say, well, in Genesis 1, he told them to be fruitful and multiply. He actually said that to the man and the woman. Well, in this verse, the woman hasn't been created yet. So this is actually chronologically a little bit earlier. And he says to the man in this command, he says, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. Notice that. The very first thing that God gives to man is he's saying, be free. Have the freedom to freely eat of every tree of the garden. The first thing God does is give man choices. And he doesn't just give him a choice between good and evil. He gives him a choice between a whole bunch of different good options. It's not like, well, there's the good tree and the bad tree. Eat off the good tree, don't eat off the bad tree. He's actually saying, no, you can eat of any of these trees except the one that's off limits. So he says, Of all the trees of the garden, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him and help meet for him. And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. I mean, is God giving Adam choices or what? And we've barely even started yet. Eve hasn't even been created yet. It's just the man. God has created Adam, and he's telling him, Look, I want you to decide which of these trees you're going to eat from. And I'm going to parade all the animals before you, and I want to see what you're going to call them. I want to see what you come up with. And not only that, but he respected man's decision because it says he brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them, and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. So not only does God give man the choice, he's not just playing games and making man feel like he has the choice. No, he actually gives him a legitimate choice, and whatever man chooses, God says, Okay, that's what we're going to call it then. We're going to call it what you decided to call it. Now, to walk away from the scripture and say, Well, man doesn't really have free will, and God's pulling all the strings, and God's making all the decisions, folks, God's establishing right away that man has a choice. The very first Bible story involving man, it's just choices, choices, choices. Go to Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter number 4, and we see the story of Cain and Abel. And, of course, Cain brings the wrong offering. Abel brings the correct offering. And, of course, Cain gets mad and upset, and it says in verse number 5, But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. God did not respect that. You say, Well, I think he's just respect all views. I think we should just respect all religions. Let's just respect all faiths. Let's respect all opinions. Does God respect all views and all faiths and all opinions? No. When somebody brought a false doctrine, when somebody brought a wrong salvation, when somebody brought something that was contrary to the word of God, God did not respect that. And so it says he did not have respect unto that, and Cain was very wroth. Now, look, that's not a light wording there when it says very wroth because even just wroth by itself, that's pretty mad. You know, you don't talk about wrath if somebody's just mildly annoyed or irritated. I mean, just the word itself, wrath, you know, conjures an image of extreme anger. But the Bible says that Cain was very wroth. So it's not like he just was like, Oh, man, you know, God didn't accept my offering. I guess I'm supposed to bring a lamb or something. You know, it wasn't that he was just a little bit miffed. No, he was very wroth. I mean, people get mad when you prove them wrong. People get mad when you tell them no. People get mad when you reject their garbage, okay? And Cain is bringing something wrong, and he gets mad, he gets upset, he's very wroth about it. And look what God says to him. The Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. This is why you'll never get me to believe in Calvinism ever, because of the fact that God is constantly telling me, Look, this is your problem. It's your fault. You did it wrong. If you do well, you'll be accepted. What kind of a weird mind game would this be if God's the one making the decisions for Cain and God's not even giving Cain the ability to do what's right? No, Cain had the ability to do what's right, and God is sincerely, and when God speaks, it's sincere. He's not playing games. He said, Look, Cain, if you do well, you will be accepted. You write the book, buddy. You decide how your life's going to turn out. Do you want to be a failure? Do you want to be a loser? You want to go to hell? That's up to you. But Cain, there is a way for you to do this right. There's a way for you to fix this. There's a way for you to be right with God, and it's up to you. The ball is in your court, Cain. You make the choice. See, God in Genesis 2 is giving us choices. In Genesis 4, he's giving the choice between getting mad when someone corrects you and getting it right. Go through it in Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19. And, you know, we live in a day where there's just an epidemic of people just who can't take correction. They don't want to be told no. And this is why they flock to the fund center churches because no one's ever going to tell them no. No one's ever going to correct them or reprove them or rebuke them. And it seems like now, even if you deliver someone the mildest reproof, they get offended if you don't just affirm everything that they say and do. It's just amazing to me. I remember there were times in the preaching class over the years when, you know, a young guy would get up and preach a sermon in the preaching class, and then I would say, hey, you know, here's a mistake that you made in the sermon, and you just look at their face, and you think, eh. And I had to rebuke it hard and say, look, if you're going to have that attitude, you can't participate. You know, you come to the preaching class, you should, you know, be ready to get some constructive criticism, critique. And I wasn't being rude at all. I was being gentle. But I'm telling you, in 2020, a lot of people can't even handle a gentle correction. They just want to be affirmed in everything that they do, just everything's good, everything's right. And you know what? Some things are just wrong. Some things are dumb, and they need to be called out, and sometimes people have to be told that they're wrong. And when someone tells us that we're wrong, and when someone gives us correction, you know, we need to be able to take correction when we're wrong and not be like Cain and just get mad. And you know, we have the choice, are we going to get things right? Look, when the preacher preaches on your sin, you can get mad about it, or you can get it right. And the choice is up to you. And it's not his problem, it's your problem. Now, this concept of free will is in the Bible because of the fact that the actual word itself, free will, is used 17 times. So 17 times, in Scripture, we have this exact word. It's one word run together, you know, eight letters, free will. And it's mainly used about a free will offering, you know, where people are basically, instead of just giving the minimum that God required, instead of just, you know, giving exactly what God asked for, when they want to go above and beyond and just give something extra to the Lord and just do more, then they would do a free will offering. And that's mentioned 17 times. Free will is used in a couple other ways as well, but 17 total mentions. Look at Leviticus 19.5. Here's another term he uses besides free will. He says in Leviticus 19.5, and if you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord, you shall offer it at your own will. Do it according to your own will. Do it because you want to do it. Look at chapter 22, Leviticus chapter 22. And you might just glance at Leviticus 20.13 while you're passing it, you know, just for a little refresher. It's not what the sermon's about or anything. All right, Leviticus 22, just kind of just like, kind of just touch it and just say like, amen, and move on. Okay, Leviticus 22.19, it says, you shall, cross yourself, you know. No, I'm just kidding. We don't do that, amen. Leviticus 22.19, you shall offer at your own will a male without blemish of the beaves of the sheep or of the goats, verse 29. And when you will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the Lord, offer it at your own will. Do it because you want to do it. Do a free will offering. Look, God created man because he wants man to serve him and make that choice. He wants us to want to love him, to want to go to church. He said, do I like to go to church? I want to go to church. I want to serve the Lord. You know, God wants us to do his will because we want to. And look, we don't have to even do the commandments to get into heaven. We don't have to do all the good works to get into heaven. But you know what? We should love the Lord with all our heart and mind and soul and want to do those things of our own free will. God loves a cheerful giver. He loves that free will offering that comes from the heart from someone who wants to serve him. God gives us choices. In Genesis 2, he gave a whole bunch of choices between a whole bunch of right options. And think about this. We all make choices every day that aren't always a choice between sin and righteousness, right? Like, for example, we might have the choice of, you know, where are we going to go out to lunch today? This is not a right or wrong issue. Now, some places are wrong, okay? But you know what I mean? There are a lot of right options, okay? You know, there's Round Table Pizza, Panda Express, Chipotle. We just went to Lucille's Barbecue. That was a right option, okay? Brother Mejia and I have gone out to Olive Garden together. And you know, these were all righteous choices that we did. And I don't have to pray, like, oh, God, show me whether of these twain thou hast chosen. You know, I'm standing between, I'm standing at the shops at Montebello between Olive Garden and Lucille's, and I have to, like, cast lots before the Lord. You know, which one is God's will for my life? You know what? God gives us choices. Okay, well, we can pick, and there's more than one right answer. You know, and here's the thing. People think that God is just this control freak. He just wants to control every aspect of your life. Oh, he's just such a dictator. Folks, nothing can be further from the truth. God is a God of freedom and liberty. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And he started out by saying, eat what you want. Call the animals what you want. Now, he has boundaries, he has guidelines, he has rules. But you know what? God's rules, the Bible says God's commandments are not grievous. And so you can, you know, you kids in here, you know, you can grow up, and you can do whatever job you want. I mean, you want to be an electrician, be an electrician? You want to be a plumber? You want to be a carpenter? You want to be a computer programmer? I mean, look, you have all these choices in your life. You can marry the girl that you want to marry. You can do the job that you want to do. You can eat the food that you like. You can live in the city that you want to live in. And thankfully, we live in America, where we still have a lot of freedom to make these choices. Folks, God loves us, and he gives us all these choices, and we pick the path of our lives. He doesn't dictate every aspect of our lives. He has a few rules, and we need to follow those rules. And you know, man that has rejected God's rules, that says, we will not have this man to rule over us, and they don't want the Ten Commandments, and they don't want the New Testament, you know what they end up doing? Having more rules. Because think about this, the worldly governments, the further they get away from God, don't they just keep passing more laws? I mean, what are the most atheistic regimes today? You know, North Korea, Communist China. And if you look at those atheistic regimes, have you noticed that they're really strict? God has very few rules. I mean, all of God's rules fit in this book, and most of this book isn't even rules. Most of this book is just cool stories, and just telling us things that are encouraging, promises, blessings, prophecies. I mean, this book's got a lot of things besides rules in it. Only a very small portion of this book is rules. And people take, even if the whole book was rules, you know what, this is less rules than the city of El Monte has. This is less rules than the state of California has. You know, if we were to go to the United States and say, hey, let's get out the criminal code, let's look at the laws that are on the books, it's going to be way more than this. In fact, I think Obamacare was like more pages than the Bible. And that's like one law. You know, it's just this incredible number of pages. Certainly more pages than the New Testament. So it's not that God is too strict or restrictive, it's just that he has a few rules, okay? And obviously, no one's going to follow his rules perfectly, we're all sinners, but you know what, we should respect his rules, and we should look at his rules as the standard, and say, you know what, these rules are right, these rules are reasonable, they're not grievous, and not get this dumb attitude of like, well, God's just ruining all my fun. God's just not letting me do anything that I want to do. But hold on, there's so much that you can do without sinning. I mean, we could sit down right now and just brainstorm thousands of fun things, exciting things, cool things that you can do without breaking God's law. Without sinning to do it. And look, I don't think God wants us to be a bunch of robots. I don't think we should all show up in a uniform, and we're all just kind of like marching in here, like North Korea style or something. And just, you know, and look, I've been in some churches where sometimes they kind of want to dictate your personal life a little bit, and they get a little bit strict on their rules and everything, and they'll tell you, you know, don't make any decisions without talking to us, and they really want to control. But you know what, that's what God is. I mean, you know, I think God enjoys the fact that his creation has this amazing attribute of free will. Like I said, we can create it. We can create a living thing that has free will. We could be a robot, it's just going to do what we tell it to do. Or we could tell it to behave randomly. But we can't tell it, hey, do what you want to do. That does not compute. It's not going to know what to do. So God has created us with free will. He gives us choices. The first point I want to make in Genesis chapter 2 is that he often gives us choices where there's not a wrong answer. You know what I mean? It's just like, what do you want to eat? What do you want to do for a living, you know? Look, I don't care what my kids grow up and do for a living. I'm not telling them, hey, you got to go into the ministry. Hey, you got to go to college. Or, hey, you got to be a blue-collar guy. Or, hey, look, if my kids are blue-collar, great. If my kids go into more of a white-collar job, great, no problem. I mean, look, it's up to them what career they want to do. I've kind of pushed them a little bit toward blue-collar just because I think it's good for a young man to get out there and use tools and work by the sweat of his face. I like that lifestyle at that age. It's good. And so that's what they're doing right now. My oldest sons are working as plumbers. But you know what? I told my son, I said, look, if you don't want to be a plumber, don't be a plumber. Find what you love and do it. Have choices. Make choices. God gives us freedom, and freedom is a blessing. To be able to marry who you want to marry, but only in the Lord, the Bible says. Let them marry whosoever they will, only in the Lord. Don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. But you know what, though? We're not going to arrange marriages for our kids. We're not arranging marriages for our church members. You know what? It's up to you. It's up to you what you're going to eat, what you're going to wear, what you're going to do for a living. Hey, a lot of times there's not just one right answer. Amen? Like when you're translating the Bible? There's more than one right answer, right? Eternal, everlasting. It's not always just one right answer, folks. There are also many wrong answers, but there are a lot of right answers as well. So that's the first point I want to make is that God gives us freedom and choices in situations that don't have anything to do with right and wrong. He just wants us to make decisions, and He wants us to choose things that we like. God does allow us to enjoy life, thankfully. You know, even though we're all created for His will and His pleasure, there are many verses in the Bible telling us to enjoy. You know, eat the fat, drink the food, enjoy. Rejoice in the Lord and send gifts one to another and have times of rejoicing and fun and so forth. I believe that. And then secondly, we see that when things are going bad in our life because we've made bad decisions and we're in sin or God's judging us or punishing us, you know, we always have the option whenever we want to fix it. We always have the option to straighten up and fly right. Any time Cain wanted to, he could just do well and be accepted. Any time. So whatever you want to whine about your situation, you know what? Any time you want, you can make it right. You can get it right. You can get it right. You can repent. And you know what? People that have been thrown out of the church, they can repent and get right with God and be reinstated. And, you know, people have said to me before, you know, well, why do you always throw people out and you never reinstate anyone? Folks, I've reinstated so many people I can't even count. But the reason, you know why you don't hear about it? Because when people are reinstated, their sins are forgiven and forgotten. And it's never mentioned again, at least not by me. Other people might mention it. But, you know, I will reinstate that person and say, hey, you know, let's start over. Let's have a reset button. Happens all the time. You know, and look, anybody, as long as they're not a reprobate, you know what I mean? If anybody wants to repent and come back and make things right, hey, that door is always open. If you're saved, it's never too late to get right with God. You know, you're the prodigal son. The Father is always waiting there for you to come home at any time. Okay? And so we have the choice to fix our life whenever we want. By getting right with God and serving Him. And then the third thing I showed you is there in Leviticus how, you know, God wants us to choose to serve Him of our own free will, of our own volition. Look if you went to Deuteronomy chapter 30. Deuteronomy chapter number 30. So we looked at Genesis. We looked at Leviticus. Look over at Deuteronomy chapter number 30. It says in Deuteronomy 30 verse 19, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Now if you take the Calvinist viewpoint, this would be disingenuous for God to say this. Because according to their viewpoint, God doesn't really mean this. You know, God's saying, I have set before you a choice. Oh, just kidding. I already chose before the world began. Folks, did God give a choice? I trust God when He says, hey, I'm giving you the choice. I don't think God already had made up all the names for all the animals. He was like, here Adam, you pick the name, you know. Hey, watch, you know, He's going to say giraffe, you know. Oh, giraffe. Good job, Adam. You know, even though God came up with that name. No, He really came up with those names. Now obviously He wasn't speaking English. So I don't know if He called it a giraffe or what He called it, okay. But whatever He called it, you know what, God let him pick the name. And I don't think the name came out of God's heart. I think it came out of Adam's mind. I think Adam originated that name. And you say, well, how is that possible if God knows everything? Hey, because God is beyond you and me to a point where He can create someone that can make their own decisions and come up with their own creativity. That's the amazing thing about God's creation. And so He's not pretending here. He's setting a real choice for all of us. He says, I've set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life. And you might have heard that as a slogan against abortion. That's directly from Scripture. Choose life that both thou and thy seed may live. Why? Because the choices that we make affect our children and our grandchildren and even unto the third and fourth generation, the decisions we make are going to affect our offspring. And so the Bible says that thou mayest love the Lord thy God and that thou mayest obey His voice and that thou mayest cleave unto Him, for He is thy life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord swear unto thy fathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give them. Look, you want to live in the Promised Land? It's available to you. But you've got to decide. It's up to you. You choose life or death. You choose blessing or cursing. Nobody else can make that choice for you. I can't choose that for you. Pastor Mejia can't choose that. You've got to make the choice. And God's not going to make that choice for you. You've got to choose life. You've got to choose blessing. Go to Joshua chapter 24, this famous verse. Joshua chapter 24, the Bible reads in verse number 15, And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That's a choice that you have to make if you're going to serve the Lord or not. Go to Proverbs chapter 1, Proverbs chapter 1. The rest of the sermon is going to be in Proverbs. Proverbs chapter number 1. And Proverbs chapter number 1, the whole book of Proverbs is a great book about choices. Because it's a book of wisdom and it's designed to give the young man wisdom. And think about it, when you're young, that's when you kind of have the most choices in life. Because when you get to be my age, some of your choices have already been made. You know, I've already chosen who I'm going to marry. I've already chosen to have a lot of kids. I've already chosen to be a pastor. I've already chosen a certain place that I live. I've got a house and I'm locked in. I'm settled in. And so I'm not sitting there wondering, you know, who am I going to marry? Where am I going to live? What am I going to do for a living? What kind of a family am I going to have? What kind of a lifestyle am I going to have? I've already made a lot of those choices, right? And thank God, you know, I didn't follow my own foolish heart and my own flesh and make dumb decisions. But, you know what, even though a lot of it didn't make sense to me at the time, I followed the Bible as best I could. And, you know, thankfully I'm in a blessed place because God has allowed me to get where I am right now and have a nice family and job and a place to live and everything like that. And I'm very happy with what God has given me. But here's the thing, if you're out there, you know, you're 17, 18, 19, 20, your whole life is ahead of you. All these choices are ahead of you. And, you know, where are you going to be when you're 38 years old? You know, when you're 38 years old, what kind of life are you going to be living? Well, everything that you're deciding right now is going to determine that. You know, and if you're going to make the wrong decisions now, you might decide to start a world of hurt when you're 38 years old. Or you could find yourself happy with where you are when you're 38. And it depends on what you do now, the choices that you make now. And so Proverbs is directed at the young man, and a lot of it's about making the right choices, saying, hey, watch out for the strange woman. Watch out for the whorish woman. Watch out for the appeal of riches and watch out for the financial pitfalls and traps and watch out that you don't start hanging around with stupid people, that you don't start hanging around with wicked people and derelicts that are going to get you into trouble. And he's trying to tell you, don't mess up your life. Make the right choices. The whole book of Proverbs is about making the right choices. Look, if you would, at Proverbs chapter number 1. It says in verse 23, turn you at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you. I will make known my words unto you, because I have called and ye refused. I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded. But ye have said it not, all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer. They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me, for that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. See, they're at a point now where there's no more choice. They've made the wrong choice. They blew it. It's too late. Now, and he says, you didn't choose right. You chose wrong. That's why you are where you are. You made a bad choice. It comes down to what? Our choices. Everything comes down to the choices that we make. God has all these blessings for us, and he has all these cursings for us, and you write the book. Life is like a choose your own adventure, okay? Hey, you want to be in church? Turn to page 54. You're going to go to the bar and get drunk? Turn to page 23, and it's like, you died. Who's ever read those choose your own adventure? And you turn the wrong page, and it's like, oh, you just died. And then here's what you do. You don't just put the book away and be like, well, that was my adventure. I died early. You know what you do? You're like, hold up, and you go back a few steps, and you're like, I'm not going to go through that door. I'm going to turn to the other page. And then you turn to the other page, and you get a lot of do-overs. And eventually you end up taking all the paths, all the deaths, having all the successes. I don't even know if those books are even still a thing. Are those even still around? Who has read, let me ask again, who has read a choose your own adventure book? I was just looking if it's only, yeah, there's some younger people that have, okay, all right. That's life. Except here's the thing about it, though. When you turn to the wrong page, you really did die. You know what I mean? You can literally make one mistake and literally die, and it's over. And it's like, oh, let me back up, because I paid good money for this book, and I don't want to just be done five minutes into it. I died five minutes in because I made such a stupid decision. But here's the thing. How many times does it take for you to make the wrong decision to die? One. How many times do you have to fornicate to get an STD? One. How many times do you have to fornicate to father a bastard child? One. How many times do you have to take drugs to get a bad batch of drugs and permanently fry your brain? One. How many times do you have to drive drunk before you kill someone? Hey, it could be the very first time. Now, look, you could do all those things and dodge bullets and, you know what? But I'll tell you this right now. When you're sitting in an Inland Time Hill Baptist Church and you're anybody who's going to go out and buy some food to get what they want, there's so much that's required. Maybe unsaved people, God, will let them dodge a lot of bullets and get away with a lot of things. But, you know, if you're a godly Christian growing up in a Christian family and then you decide to just throw all that away and go out and party and do drugs, you know what? You're probably the one that's going to get that bad batch of drugs. You're probably the one that's going to get that bad batch of drugs. You're probably the one that's going to get in that wreck. You're probably the one that's going to get paralyzed or whatever because you didn't choose the fear of the Lord. And so you better understand that the choices that you make affect your life. And look what the Bible says. They didn't choose the fear of the Lord, verse 30. They would none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way. The choices that they made are going to come back and bite them. I need another microphone. He says here they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices. You know, why are all these bad things happening to me? Because you made bad choices in many cases. Now, look, if you made good choices and bad things happen to you, well, then you know what? That's just trials and tribulations. That's rewards in heaven. God's just strengthening you, and when you're tried, you'll come forth as gold. And he's just making you a better person. David said it's good for me that I've been afflicted, that I might keep Thy word. He'll put us through trials and tribulations to make us a better person. But you know what? You know when you're in seeking. You know when you're rebelling against the Lord. You know when you're not seeking the kingdom of God and those bad things happen to you. You're eating the fruit of your own doings. And it's not that God just has it in for you and that God just in eternity past is like, You know what? I'm going to create a guy named Bruce Mejia, and I'm going to mess with him, and I'm going to, I mean, I'm just going to make his life miserable. And bad things are going to happen for nobody. Is that what you think God's doing up in heaven? No, I guarantee you that God's looking down and saying, Okay, I'm going to create my son, Bruce Mejia. Here's what I'm going to do. Here are all the doors that are open for him. Here's what he could do. Here's what he could be. Here are all the blessings, and he's got a good plan for his life. And if he makes the right choices, he goes through that door, and he gets all the blessings. But if he were to go through a bad door, it would be his own fault, and he would eat the fruit of his own doings. Now, thankfully, he's serving the Lord right now. Thankfully, I'm serving the Lord right now. Now, either one of us could go down a dark path someday, because we have that choice. Every day we have to take up the cross and follow Christ. And you know what? I'm using us just to not make it personal with anybody else, because we're preaching. But here's the thing. Insert your name there. Do you think that God is up in heaven just planning to mess with you and mess up your life? No, God has a wonderful plan for your life. Choose it. Choose the blessings. Choose life. And God does not want you to be a failure. He doesn't want you to be doomed. Now, look, he wants us all to go through suffering just because that's part of our journey in this world. But he doesn't want you to be the father. You've got to choose to get on this program to get those blessings that he has for you and not to go down that dark path. Go to Proverbs chapter 9. Proverbs chapter number 9. You know, we live in a day where everyone has to blame everyone else. Blame everyone else when they fail in life. Blame everyone else. I mean, look, sorry to get all controversial, but we have a group of people today that are trying to blame their current situation on something that happened like 150 years ago, when in reality every door is open under them today. They can attend any school. They can attend any university. There is not a university in America that will say, oh, sorry, you're black. It doesn't exist. It does not exist, friend. Every university, every college, hey, they could be anything from an astronaut to a marine biologist to the President of the United States. Every door is open. Now here's the thing. There are a lot of people in the black community that are doing great things for God, that are living good Christian lives, that are successful, well-educated, they have successful careers. How'd they do that? Because they chose blessings. They chose life. They chose the word of the Lord. They chose the fear of the Lord, that's why. And then there's another group of people that just wants to blame everyone else. And that's just one example, friend. It's all nationalities that do this. It's man, woman, boy, and girl. We have an epidemic today of people not taking personal responsibility for their own life. And look, are certain people more advantaged than others? Sure. Or what's the word? Privilege. I guess that's the right word, right? Well, you got the privilege, white privilege. You know, the rich. You grew up rich or something. But you know what, though? Obviously, people have advantage. And good looking. You know, some people are born rich, and they're in a wealthy family, and they're being sent to all these high-end schools. Other people are going to school in the ghetto. And here's the thing. You know, we all start at different levels. But you know what, though? We all choose which direction we get. Are we going to go up or are we going to go down? And somebody else might start higher up on the ladder than you. But you know what? You choose whether you're going to go up or down. You choose whether you're going to be a success or you're going to be a failure, okay? And you know what? Just because maybe your parents didn't train you right and maybe your parents were whatever, failing in life in some way, shape, or form, you don't have to fail in life. Because you know what? You would not be the first person who actually turned around a family line that was going the wrong way. You know, where you got just person after person, failing, failing, failing. You know, at some point, somebody turns around and says, you know what? As me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. Because look at Abraham. Abraham's dad and his grandpa and his great-grandpa, they're worshiping idols, but you know what? He didn't worship the gods of his fathers on the other side of the flood. He worshiped the Lord. Okay, somebody's got to break that cycle at some point and not just say, well, I grew up in poverty, so here I am. Well, you know what? You need to get on the Lord's program, follow the Lord, and let the Lord bless you and pull you out of that situation. Or you can just complain and say, well, I didn't have the advantages. And you know what? There are people out there that are less advantaged than me, but you know what? There are also people out there that were more advantaged than me. Everybody's got different pros and cons to their life. You know? One person is blessed with great intelligence, but maybe they're lacking in another area. Maybe they're lacking physically, or maybe they're lacking socially or whatever. Another person is gifted physically and socially, and maybe they're lacking intelligence. Look, it's sort of like those video games where you're building your character and you've got so many points to work with, and you're choosing... Who's geeked out with me on these games? No, I'm just kidding. You're choosing whether you're going to have more intelligence, wisdom, strength, agility. Who knows what I'm talking about? Or I think they do it in Mario Kart, too, right? You know, like, okay, here we go. Look, when I became a fan, I put away childish things, so I have to go back to the old video games. Super Mario Brothers 2. Anybody? It's like crickets. Who played Super Mario Brothers 2? Okay, see, hands all over the building. The altars are filled tonight. You remember how Luigi could jump the highest? But he was kind of hard to control. And then remember the princess would just, like, float. She would jump in the air and just kind of float for a while. That was kind of helpful sometimes. And then Toad was, like, really fast, but he can't jump. You remember that? And then Mario was kind of like a well-rounded, he kind of had a little bit of everything. Now, I played, I only used Luigi when I played that game. But the thing about that is that, you know, that's how life is. You know, some of us are Mario, some of us are Luigi, some of us are Toadstool, and some of us are the princess. Not me, but, you know, some of you ladies are the princess, okay? And the point is, you know, you could beat, look, I beat that game with all four characters. Because back when we were kids, we only had a couple games. And we had a lot of time back then. We didn't have the entertainment that you guys had. There were only, like, three channels on TV. The rest was static. And so, you know, we had Super Mario, and we beat it with Mario, we beat it with Luigi, we beat it with Toadstool, we beat it with the princess, because it was just, you know, you could beat it with any of the four characters. It's not like you could always beat, you know. So here's the thing. Just because you were born a Toadstool doesn't mean that you can't beat the game. Amen? So quit whining about the fact that you're not Luigi, and do with what you got. Make the right choices and take, look, God delivers to one, one talent. He delivers another two talents. He delivers another five talents, ten talents. But, you know, if you're a one talent guy, use that talent for the Lord, and you're going to get a well done, now good and faithful servant. And you're going to be blessed. Don't envy other people and say, oh, man, must be nice, you know, he's so much smarter than me. School is so easy for him, work comes easy to him, or, well, his parents taught him, you know, my parents just taught me to get drunk, but his parents taught him Christianity. Hey, look, it doesn't matter, because you're here right now, you're sitting in one of the top churches in America, in my opinion. What's your excuse? How many churches are there in America? How many? Hundreds of thousands of churches, and if we were to rank them, you know, if God were to rank them on who's got the candlestick burning bright, I believe you're sitting in one of the top churches in America. But you can't serve the Lord? You can't get your act together? You can't do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth you? That makes no sense. I think you've got a little more advantages than you think. You're living in L.A., California, the land of opportunity. I turn to Genesis chapter 2, because we're in the Garden of Eden here, amen? California is the Promised Land. I mean, look, you're living in one of the most prosperous countries. You're living in a part of America that has a lot of opportunities, beautiful place to live, one of the top churches in America. Folks, you've got the tools. Do something great for God. Make the choice. Don't blame other people when it doesn't work out. If it doesn't work out, you're just eating the fruit of your own doings. Look at Proverbs chapter 9, verse 1. Wisdom hath builded her house. She hath hewn out her seven pillars. She hath killed her beasts. She hath mingled her wine. She hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens. She crieth upon the highest places of the city. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. As for him that wanteth understanding, she sayeth to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish and live, and go in the way of understanding. All of us have the opportunity to do this. Either reprove of the scorn or getteth to himself shame, and either rebuke of the wicked man, getteth himself a blot. He say, look, you tell wicked people that they're wrong, they don't accept it. You know, they end up just biting back at you. And he says, reprove not a scorn, or lest he hate thee, rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. Give instruction to a wise man, and he'll be yet wiser. Teach a just man, and he will increase learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding, for by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased. And watch this verse in verse 12. This is something that's emphasized so many times in Proverbs. If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself. But if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. Now what does that mean when he says, if thou shalt be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself. But if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. What does that mean? Here's what he's saying. He's saying, you know, at the end of the day, if you reject the word of God that's being preached, if you reject the Lord's wisdom, you know who you're hurting at the end of the day? Yourself. You're hurting yourself. Okay, that you alone will bear it. And you know what, if you do what's right, if you're wise, you're wise for yourself. He's saying, like, you're going to benefit from that. Look, God says that our earthly fathers, they disciplined us and punished us after their own pleasure, but God disciplines us for our profit. For our profit that we might be partakers of His holiness. God wants us to be wise. One of the reasons is for ourselves. Because, you know what, the way of transgressors is hard. He wants us to have a blessed life, and so if we obey the Lord, we're going to benefit. And you know what, if we scorn, if we mock and ridicule the things of God and blow it off and don't listen, hey, we're alone going to bear it. We're the biggest victim in that scenario. You know, it's like, well, I, you know, also, Pastor Mejia, I'll just quit the church. You know what, you can quit the church, you can go out and live a sinful life, you're not hurting him. He's still going to be here. He's still going to be preaching. He's still going to have a great family. He's still going to have a great church. He's still going to be walking with God. He's still going to be earning rewards and winning souls. You're the one that's shooting yourself in the foot. Well, I'll show my parents. I'll go out and rebel against my parents. I'll show them. That's what you're doing. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. So don't think you're punishing or that you're punishing God or that you're punishing the man of God or that you're punishing your parents or punishing the church because you're going to go out and be an idiot and know you're punishing yourself. And, you know, there's something that I think about all the time. I hate cheating. Cheating has always been a pet peeve of mine, especially in sports. You know, when I hear about athletes doping, it really just makes my blood boil. I don't even know why because I'm not even into sports. I don't even care about sports. I don't even like sports. But somehow I just get really passionate about this one subject of doping. Just, I don't know why, but it's just like... I just get so mad. You know, and... You know, it bothered me when people would cheat in school, too. You know, maybe that hits a little close to home for some people, but I'm just saying, like, you know, it's just like... And I remember when I was in... I was at the gym, and I heard that, you know, this guy, one of the trainers at this gym, this is what he said. And this statement stuck with me, and I think about this statement every week of my life. Every week. You know, certain things just really stick with you. Certain things that you just always remember. And I love this statement, and I think about this almost every day, but I certainly think about it every week. When you cheat, you're only cheating yourself. I always think about that. Like, when you cheat, you're cheating yourself. Because you know what? You're the one who walks out of that class dumb. Oh, you're gonna cheat on the quiz, cheat on the test, cheat on everything. You're the one who goes out dumb. The teacher knows math. The teacher knows science. The teacher knows English. The teacher knows... You're the one who goes out without the information that you need. Okay. And, you know, if you're that guy at the gym doing the partial reps... Folks, this is hard preaching right now. I'm talking about partial reps. You know, these little pull-ups where you just... You're not going to a dead hang on each rep. You got that big pile of wood blocks on your chest while you're doing the bench press, and you're doing this little dog and pony show where you go down like three inches and back up three inches. What is that? What is that? What is that pile of wood on your chest when you're doing a bench press? Why don't you just bring the bar all the way down to your chest and raise it back up again and do a full range of motion? Partial reps aren't impressing anyone. You're just cheating yourself of the games. And I'm not saying the game is godliness. Okay. I'm not saying gains are godliness. But I'm using that as an illustration. You know, you go to the gym and you want to impress everybody with how much weight you can load up on the bar and do your little partial reps. You know what? The humble man, he puts the amount of weight on the bar that he can actually do a real rep with and actually do it right. And you know what? When you go to the test and you're in school or whatever, you know, why don't you actually learn the material and why don't you earn that grade? Because you know what? I don't know about you, but I earned pretty decent grades in high school and in college and everything like that. But you know what? No one ever asked me for my report card ever. Never. I have never one time had a job say, show me your report card. I want to see your report card. I want to see what grades you got. Now, your teacher always threatened you that it would. Employers are going to look at this. They don't. All right. I want to see your grades. You know, never have my church members said, hey, what grade did you get in Old Testament survey in Bible college? What did you get? Never had that happen. How far did you go in math? But you know what, though? You know what actually ends up mattering in life? Actually knowing that material actually ends up mattering. Now, here's the thing. Has knowing English been important in my life? Oh, yeah. I mean, as a pastor, you know, you're constantly writing letters. You're constantly speaking, and you're writing articles and writing e-mails. And so, yeah, I better know the language. And you know what? When we're running the church finances, we better know math. We better understand accounting. You know, and we better have paid attention in science class, or next thing you know, our name's Tyler Doka or whatever if we didn't pay attention in science class. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, the point is, at the end of the day, we think when we're in school, all we care about is the grade. We're in school. All we care about is just pass the test, get the grade, even if we have to cheat to do it. But you know what? All you're doing is cheating yourself because you know what? You're going to be the one in your 20s and in your 30s who doesn't know the language, doesn't know math, doesn't understand science, doesn't understand, and you know what? Your teacher knows all those things. You got yourself in the foot by not learning and cheating your way through school because then you're the one who's an idiot, you're the one who can't succeed at your job, you're the one who hits a ceiling in your life because you cheated! And God doesn't bless cheating, and cheaters never prosper! And is there any glory in winning a board game that you cheated at? Is there any glory at winning an athletic competition when you doped and cheated to do it? No, you cheated yourself! You cheated yourself. And you know what? The Bible says, if you're wise, you'll be wise for yourself, and if thou scornest, thou alone shall bear it. You know what? We're constantly getting on our kids and telling our kids, hey, do your schoolwork, read your Bible, right? Care about the things of God. Care about learning. Care about doing a good job. Obey your parents, right? Pray! Why are we doing these things? It's because we love them, and we know that if they scorn, they alone are going to bear it. And because we love our kids, we want them to live a blessed life. We want them to live a happy life. We don't want them to grow up. We don't want to say, I told you so. We don't want to say, see? I told you that if you slacked at your schoolwork, you're going to be a slacker on your job. That's why you're fired. That's why you can't pay your bills. That's why you can't hold down a job because you slacked on your schoolwork, and that's why you're slacking now because you're a slacker. We don't want to give that speech. That gives us no satisfaction. What we want to do is watch our children make the right choices, marry a godly spouse, be an active member in the church, right? And be happy. Folks, if you take heed under the preaching of God's word, you are going to benefit yourself from that, friend. But if you decide to just blow off church, blow off the word of God, oh, you'll hurt other people, too. But you know what? You'll hurt yourself 10 times more than you hurt anyone else. And you say, oh, man, Pastor Anderson, it must be disappointing to invest in people and do things for people and train people. Because when you're a pastor, you're constantly teaching people, helping people, investing in people, and you see people fall away and go back to the world, and you see people make a shipwreck of their lives, right? And you say, man, that must just feel so frustrating, or not really, because I'm still here. My family's still loving the Lord. We're still going good. You know, I think about the Apostle Paul. He said, all that are in Asia have forsaken me. Was Paul a failure or a success? You know, those guys that turned away from Paul, you know what all they did was just make sure that their name got left out of the Bible. Or just made sure they got a mention of, like, oh, this guy loved the present world. Demas isn't a cool name. I hope we don't have anybody here named Demas tonight. Any Demases out there? You know why? Do we have anybody here named David? Oh, see, there you go. Do we have a Joshua? Yeah, see? You know, why? Because these are characters that did right. Demas was the guy who forsook Paul because he loved this present world. Do you think it was maybe Paul's back or Demas's back? Do you think Paul's at the dead end or something? Demas. I could have done so much more. Demas would have just hung with me. No, Paul just kept going full speed ahead. Demas is the one whose name lives in infamy as being the guy who bailed because he loved this present world. So the point is, folks, you make the choice for your life. You write the book. You have the decision, and the decision is going to affect you more than anyone else. It'll affect other people. It'll affect your children. But you're hurting yourself the most. And so you have the choice today, life, death, blessing, cursing. You write the book, and if you make the right choice, God's going to bless you. And you know what? I don't care how messed up your life is right now. Maybe, I don't know, because a lot of people are regular members here. I don't know. Maybe there's somebody here who's new. Maybe you're a visitor. Maybe you're pretty new. And you know what? Maybe you're in a low point in your life right now, or maybe your life is messed up, and things are going wrong, and you're far from the Lord. Well, you know what? I just want to invite you tonight to come home because as long as you're saved, God's ready to receive you. And if you're not saved, God's ready to give you salvation tonight if you call upon the name of the Lord, you shall be saved. You can pretty much grab almost anybody here. Any of these guys here in this church, any of the members here can probably take you and show you from the Romans Road how to be saved tonight. You can be saved, and if you're already saved, and you say, my life's a mess, you know what? You can fix it through Christ. You can get in church. You can start reading your Bible. You know what? All you got to do is just make the right choices tomorrow. God has screwed up royally today, yesterday, the day before. Hey, tomorrow's a brand new day. And it starts right now because the evening and the morning are the first day. So this is the first day of the rest of your life, all right? Choose life. Choose blessing. We have free will tonight. It's not that you're just born under a bad sign. You know, and you're just born under a bad sign, and just no matter what you do, it's just I'm just doomed. No, you can be just as blessed as I am or anybody else. Because you write the book. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and thank you for giving us choices, Lord. Thank you that we're not just these robots or automatons and that we're not just your slaves and we're not just robots that you control or puppets that you pull a string. Lord, thank you for making us people who can make the decisions and choices, Lord. And, Lord, it could be a two-edged sword, because if we make the right decision, it could be great, Lord. Help everyone in here to be wise and make those right decisions and not to make dumb decisions. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.